


To Confess

by Celia_and



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drinking, Drinking Games, F/M, Feelings Confession, Fluff, Happy Ending, House Party, Mutual Pining, One Shot, Party Games, Soft Ben Solo, matchmaker rose, one brain cell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27868862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celia_and/pseuds/Celia_and
Summary: Ben looks up. He stares directly across the circle at her, like no one else is in the room. He takes a deep, shaking breath and says one word:“Rey.”----------This will finally be the night that three years of mutual pining is over for Ben and Rey, if Rose and a drinking game have anything to say about it.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 45
Kudos: 457
Collections: Galactic Idiots Collection





	To Confess

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BensCalligraphySet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BensCalligraphySet/gifts).



> A twitter fic inspired by [Fran’s](https://twitter.com/galacticidiots) irresistible [prompt](https://twitter.com/galacticidiots/status/1333072514218684417):
> 
> _The game is called Paranoia. One person whispers a question into another’s ear and they have to answer out loud. Then a coin is flipped; if it’s heads, the asker has to reveal what the question was._
> 
> _They’re at a house party. Rose whispers a question to Ben._
> 
> _He answers, “Rey.”_
> 
> _The coin is flipped. It’s tails. Which means everybody’s left to wonder what the question was — including Rey._
> 
> _She tries to find him after, but it’s too late._
> 
> _Ben is gone._

Half an hour in, Rey is skirting the edge of tipsy: that point when she knows without looking that her cheeks start to turn pink.

It’s handy. It’s harder to see her blush that way.

She’s directly across the circle from Ben. They could’ve sat on the lumpy couch and dragged some chairs around, but Poe insisted that they sit on the floor. Something about it being more fun that way. And more convenient if it happened to evolve into a game of spin the bottle. The group had groaned at that.

“Paranoia,” he called it.

“That’s definitely not a real game,” Rose had decreed, waggling a finger on the hand not holding a beer.

“It is too! Didn’t you go to college?”

“You got me,” Rose admitted, taking a swig. “I bypassed undergrad and came straight to PhD.”

“We’re going to sit on the floor and play this game and we’re going to recapture our youth, dammit,” Poe decreed.

Jannah stage-whispered, “Is someone gonna tell him that some of us are still young?”

Poe tugged her to the floor beside him. “Just for that, you’re going first.”

“We sit in a circle. One person whispers a question to the person sitting next to them, and they answer aloud. Then—” he extracted a coin from his pocket— “I flip this. If it’s heads, the asker has to say what the question was. If it’s tails, we’ll never know.”

“Wait, so it’s not even a drinking game?” Paige asked.

“Oh, and you have to take a drink every time you answer a question. Boom, now it is.”

Amid a chorus of good-natured grumbling, everyone eventually sat down.

And the game began.

That’s how, two times around the circle later, Rey is sipping her drink and turning pinker by the minute and failing with increasing frequency to achieve her overarching goal during these Friday nights: 

Not watching Ben.

He’s sitting hunched against the rickety entertainment console on which is perched Poe’s second-hand TV, and his legs are too long to cross properly and still fit in the circle, so he planted his feet on the ground in front of him. His knees make right angles.

It’s definitely the drinks that are prompting her to consider just how perfectly she could fit if she straddled his hips and nestled in that cradle of torso and thighs. Because she wouldn’t otherwise have those kinds of thoughts about Ben. Quiet, introspective, brilliant Ben.

She’s sure there are some juicy secrets being revealed as the initially innocuous questions turn more personal, but she can’t bring herself to pay attention, because Ben’s cheeks are flushing too, and a lock of hair has fallen over his forehead and he hasn’t brushed it aside. She could brush it aside for him, if he let her sit on his lap. She could nudge it carefully with one finger, just enough to plant a kiss there, on his forehead. The one a few centimeters from his earnest, unguarded eyes and several millimeters from his beautiful brain.

She shivers.

It’s Rose’s turn again, and Rey doesn’t altogether like how readily Ben leans down so she can reach him, or how Rose smiles slightly as her hand cups his ear to block their secret. The question seems to go on for a long time, or maybe it just feels long. Because Ben’s lips part and quiver, and then he seems to master himself and closes them again, and Rose is still smiling gently as she finally pulls back.

Ben looks up. He stares directly across the circle at her, like no one else is in the room. He takes a deep, shaking breath and says one word:

“Rey.”

Rey holds her breath as Poe flips the coin. Surely the universe must know how vital it is that this of all flips in the history of the world comes up heads. She can still feel Ben’s eyes on her, though she doesn’t know how, because hers are trained on the spinning airborne coin.

Poe catches it and slaps in on the back of his hand. His eyes dramatically rove the circle of faces to increase the suspense, and when Finn throws some pistachio shells at his head, he finally lifts his top hand to announce:

“Tails!”

Everyone groans. Except Rose, who’s still smiling softly, and Ben, who’s looking down at his knees, and Rey.

She doesn’t groan.

She’s too busy trying to come to terms with this latest shove from the universe insisting there’s nothing between them. That she’s been imagining three years of unspoken words and missed connections, and some dumb drinking game isn’t going to magically make him care for her.

She gets up in the ensuing hubbub, muttering an excuse about the bathroom, and rounds the corner to the tiny powder room. She tries not to look at herself in the mirror as she wets a wad of folded tissues with cold water and presses it to her hot cheeks.

She needs to go home. She throws the tissues away and stares straight at her reflection: the overbright eyes and the still-pink cheeks and the sweater she wears because he once said it made her eyes look green.

Actually, no, she doesn’t need to go home.

She needs to find him.

When she emerges from the bathroom, the game seems to have broken up, and Poe and Jannah are still on the floor apparently deep in an argument about neurological proof or lack thereof of eidetic memory. Rose and Paige are refilling their drinks and talking animatedly while Finn reaches on tiptoe for a chip bowl on the top shelf of Poe’s kitchen cabinet: the one he took the door off of rather than pay for replacement hinges after the old ones bent.

And Ben—

Ben is gone.

“I need to talk to you,” Rey urgently cuts in at Rose’s elbow. Paige and Finn set about the task of filling the chip bowl and scrounging for something to use for salsa other than a Looney Tunes cereal bowl.

“How’s my favorite friend?” Rose exclaims, pinching Rey’s cheek in an affectionate-aunt sort of way.

“I don’t know, you call whoever you’re talking to at that moment your favorite friend.”

“You—” Rose points emphatically, “want to ask me a question. And I know what it is.”

“When did Ben leave?”

“Hmm,” Rose smiles over the rim of her drink. “That’s not the question.”

“What?”

“Ask me the question, Rey. What do you want to know? I won’t even make you flip a coin.”

“Fine.” She lowers her voice to an inconspicuous murmur. “What did you ask him?”

“He didn’t,” Rose answers immediately.

“That’s... not a question.”

“No, it’s the answer. To your first question. When did Ben leave? He didn’t.”

“Where is he?”

Rose shakes her head. “Nope, you have to answer a question first. Why do you want to know?”

“I don’t,” Rey answers automatically, clutching her beer defensively to her chest.

“Oh, sure. That’s why you asked me.”

“I mean... I don’t know.” She rubs her hand over her forehead. “It’s late. I should get going anyway.”

Rose rolls her eyes. “Ugh, it’s been three years. This whole thing is giving me gray hair.”

“What thing?”

Rose scoffs. “You and Ben.”

“What d’you mean me and Ben? There is no me and Ben. We’re not a thing. There is no thing.”

“Don’t remind me.” Rose gestures adamantly at the back door, the one that leads to the cramped backyard that the weeds have long since conquered. “Go.”

Rey goes. She could use some fresh air anyway. She steps over Poe’s legs and eases the door open. It sticks. She slips through the opening and closes it behind her with a sigh.

“Hey,” a low voice says.

Ben’s voice.

“Oh!” she squeaks, jumping.

“Sorry.” He pushes himself up from where he’d been leaning on the ivy-claimed fence. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t. I mean you did, but it’s fine.”

“Nice night,” Ben says stiffly, waving a big hand to indicate which night he’s talking about. It’s not a particularly nice night. It’s about forty-three degrees. Rey shivers in her sweater.

“Yeah.” She takes a lungful of confidence.

“Can I—” he blurts.

“What did—” she says at the same time.

“Sorry. You go.”

“No, you.”

“Rey, please, you first.”

“What did Rose ask you?”

She can see his blush even by moonlight. “Rose?”

“Yeah.”

“What question?”

“Yeah.”

“She asked me... who was wearing a green sweater.”

“She asked you who was wearing a green sweater.”

A muscle in his jaw flinches. “Yes. That’s why I said you. Rey.”

“Oh. It seemed like—”

“Yeah?” he asks eagerly.

“Never mind.”

“Oh. Sure.”

She clasps a wrist in each hand in front of her. “What were you going to say?”

“Say?”

“Before. When we both talked at the same time.”

He shifts his weight. “Nothing important.”

“Oh.” Ridiculously, tears prick her eyes. Rose was wrong. There’s no her and Ben. There will never be a her and Ben. The sooner she comes to terms with it, the sooner she can be herself again. Independent. Alone but not lonely. Just Rey.

She turns to go back inside.

“Can I have your number?” The words tumble out of his mouth.

She turns back to him.

“My number? My phone number?”

“Yeah.”

“Ben, you have my number. We all exchanged numbers the first week of the program.”

“I know. I mean, can I text you?”

“We see each other six days a week. What do you need to text me about?”

“I need to ask you something.”

She doesn’t understand him. She’s never understood him. “You can’t ask me... now?”

“It might be easier if I could text you. Then you don’t have to say no to my face.”

“Say no to what?”

“When I ask you out.”

A small explosion happens in her chest, something warm and brand-new, but familiar at the same time, like she’s been anticipating it her whole life. She smiles and looks up at him. “Ben. Go out with me.”

Unless she’s mistaken, a similar explosion happens in his chest too.

He takes a tentative step towards her, and so does she towards him, and they meet in the middle. “Go out with me,” she repeats.

“Yeah.” His lips curve into the sweetest smile she’s ever seen. “Okay.”

She rests her hands on his shoulders and she goes up on tiptoe, but she doesn’t kiss him just yet, because first she has to murmur, “One day you’re going to tell me what Rose really asked you.”

His arms encircle her, and his smile is her home. “One day,” he agrees.

They don’t know it yet, but two years later, Rose will stand up in a green bridesmaid’s dress with a glass of champagne and take all the credit.

* * *

Rose’s breath tickles the shell of his ear. “I’ll make up some other question if it lands on heads. But confess, Ben, for practice. Who have you been head over heels crazy about ever since you met her? Think how good it will feel to say it out loud after all this time.”

Ben looks up. He stares directly across the circle at her, like no one else is in the room. He takes a deep, shaking breath and says one word:

“Rey.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this made you happy! Come visit me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CeliaAnd2) if you’d like! 💛


End file.
